Techspedia™

Does the Shamwow Really Work? As Seen on TV Product Review

KyraM — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 05:00:00 +0000

The commercial for the Shamwow claims it is a revolutionary fabric that works wet or dry, acts like a vacuum to soak up spills and holds 20 times its weight in moisture. The verdict: it works, but don't expect to say wow every time you use it.

On Virgin America’s inaugural GoGo WiFi flight: this post published from 35,000 feet

KyraM — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 03:13:01 +0000

So I took a little a break from working on gdgt to get on Virgin America’s inaugural Aircell GoGo WiFi party flight, posting this at altitude. If you haven’t already caught one of the early Aircell flights on Delta, American, or Air Canada, their now-active GoGo service provides in-flight internet. So far, as far as party planes go, this one hasn’t been too raucous — probably because everyone’s been geeking out on their laptops.
Quick facts:

The service is a shared high-power EV-DO Rev. A connection, at 3.6Mbps downstream and 1.8Mbps upstream.
By April, 100% of Virgin America’s flights will have GoGo service. Dayumn! All GoGo service is for short flights (under 3 hours) and for longer flights (over 3 hours).
So far I’ve been getting about 1Mbps down, and 200Kbps up — pretty good considering that this is about as pinned as the system is going to get. There are only about 150 people on it right now, you know?
Latency is between 200-500ms, sometimes higher. Reasonable latency, though.
The system uses 802.11a/b/g, although it’s an open AP (i.e. no encryption).
Speaking of which, GoGo claims they’ll support VPN, so expect that to work. SSH is iffy though — it worked for us, but they don’t really want people SSH tunneling (especially to do stuff like VoIP).
Aircell intends to block voice and video chat to keep things less obnoxious for travelers. It’s working in flight though — people are doing iChat sessions. But part of this inaugural flight will have live YouTube streaming, so one should expect to have this cut off later.
BitTorrent works! It’s not crazy fast, but I’m peering with about 8 nodes. I wouldn’t expect this to work when the service launches.
GoGo has a built-in traffic shaper that keeps an eye out for those using more traffic than others. If you’re consuming too much, it’ll scale you back (although no one has a hard cap). If you’re the only one on GoGo (say, on a red-eye at 4am) then you can go crazy, you won’t be scaled back. Still, I’m sitting next to my old pal Brian Lam from Giz, and I’d wager the two of us are somehow taking up about 80% of the plane’s bandwidth.
Virgin America isn’t filtering content, so feel free to cast a glance over your shoulder and engage your browser’s private mode.

Any thing else you want to know?

Filed under: Transportation, Wireless

On Virgin America’s inaugural GoGo WiFi flight: this post published from 35,000 feet originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 22 Nov 2008 19:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nokia tying up with NTT DoCoMo for Japanese MVNO?

KyraM — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 03:11:58 +0000

So Nokia has a 40-odd percent stake in the world’s handset market. You know where that insanely high number isn’t coming from? Japan, where the Finnish giant holds less than a 1-percent share of phone sales as it competes against domestic models from Sharp, NEC, Fujitsu, and others who’ve traditionally ruled over FOMA with an iron fist. We think that we can probably chalk that up to the simple fact that Nokia doesn’t produce many (okay, any) wide VGA flip phones with one-seg TV tuners, but they’re thinking bigger — way bigger — to the tune of a self-branded MVNO that’d operate on NTT DoCoMo’s expansive network. A Japanese paper is reporting that the virtual network will launch next spring, initially with high-end models designed to establish name recognition in a market where it currently has none; Vertu is just starting to set up shop over there, so we’re assuming they don’t mean ridiculously high-end, but high-end in the sense that the spec sheets won’t get laughed right out of town.

[Via Unwired View, thanks Robin of Loxley]

Filed under: Cellphones

Nokia tying up with NTT DoCoMo for Japanese MVNO? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 22 Nov 2008 17:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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BlackBerry Storm’s clickable screen (and the rest of it) dissected, exposed

KyraM — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 03:10:56 +0000

So you’ve read our extensive BlackBerry Storm review and, despite feeling disappointment about it not living up to the hype, can’t help but wonder just what makes the thing ~~tick~~ click. While we were a bit too squeamish to rip one of ours apart and find out, phoneWreck felt no qualms about turning this week’s hottest handset into a pile of bits, exposing (among numerous other things) the Qualcomm MSM7600 processor that’s blamed for the phone’s sluggish performance. As to how the clicky screen works, it’s rather simple: just a plate behind the display (pictured above) with a dimple to push a button on a circuit board. Never dissect your heroes, kids; it just takes the mystery out of life.

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

BlackBerry Storm’s clickable screen (and the rest of it) dissected, exposed originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 22 Nov 2008 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dell’s Core i7-packin’ Studio XPS hits the review bench

KyraM — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 03:10:01 +0000

Dell’s Studio XPS had “winner” written all over it from the get-go. With practically every other Core i7 rig on the market catering specifically to gamers who were willing to pay a premium for an equally cutting edge GPU, this machine directed itself to everyone who just wanted to do everything but game (and do so quickly). The kids over at DesktopReview were able to take the sub-,000 box for a spin, and while they weren’t too fond of the relatively plain chassis, it was pretty much thumbs-up everywhere else. Performance in everyday applications was stellar, gaming was better than average and the value was unbeatable. Overall, the Studio XPS is darn close to the perfect machine for folks who want to compute quickly and play a game or two on the side, but rather than taking our word for it, we’d suggest hitting the read link and having a look for yourself.

[Thanks, Max]

Filed under: Desktops

Dell’s Core i7-packin’ Studio XPS hits the review bench originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 22 Nov 2008 15:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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BlackBerry Storm shipments delayed due to apparent version glitch

KyraM — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 03:09:02 +0000

If you’re one of the many, many BlackBerry Storm buyers who cleaned out inventories at Verizon stores on Friday, all that time spent waiting in the cold just became a bit more worthwhile. Online orders are being subject to shipping delays and, while you might think this is just another case of holiday supply versus demand, many are calling shenanigans. Supposedly the Storm was set to launch with OS version 4.7.0.82, but due to a last-minute security glitch every last handset had to be downgraded to .65 — a surely time-consuming task that resulted in many fewer handsets in-store and online for release. Right now Verizon is indicating that orders placed before noon on November 21 should ship on the 25th, those received after noon will ship on December 5, and anything received on November 22 or later will not ship before December 15. That’s close enough to a certain major holiday to make BlackBerry-loving kids of all ages nervous. If a Storm is high on your Christmas list you might just want to plan a few extra good deeds on your schedule to boost your placement on the “nice” list — nobody wants a 7100i in their stocking.

[Via CrackBerry]

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

BlackBerry Storm shipments delayed due to apparent version glitch originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 22 Nov 2008 13:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Art Lebedev outthinks the room with square Luxofor traffic lights

KyraM — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 03:08:05 +0000

We can only imagine that at least a few staffers over at Art Lebedev Studios get paid to do nothing but conjure up ideas, because this one is just marvelous. And marvelously simple, but that’s beside the point. The Luxofor traffic light concept improves upon a nearly archaic design that still relies on spherical fixtures when there’s really no need. Lebedev’s team asserts that using square lights backed with bright laser diodes would make better use of the available space and provide a more noticeable signal to drowsy motorists. The roar of “why didn’t I think of that?” being simultaneously stated is downright deafening.

[Via Electronista]

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Art Lebedev outthinks the room with square Luxofor traffic lights originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 22 Nov 2008 12:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Intel’s convertible Classmate PC barely makes it to FCC class

KyraM — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 03:07:08 +0000

Although the third-generation Classmate PC looked completely unprepared for the real world comin’ out of IFA, Intel has clearly hit the books during the fall term. Now, the convertible Classmate has graduated to the FCC, where we’re shown a user’s manual, label ID and a smattering of pathetic images. If you’re thinking this bugger’s just on cruise control until diploma day, you’ve got another thing coming, but we have heard that it’s taking a job on US soil right after the holiday break.

Filed under: Laptops

Intel’s convertible Classmate PC barely makes it to FCC class originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 22 Nov 2008 10:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hello Kitty C1 netbook packs a lotta ‘tude into a small package

KyraM — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 03:06:09 +0000

There’s been a serious dearth of Hello Kitty-branded products these days, but the dry-spell is thankfully at an end, with the arrival of the Hello Kitty C1. The crazy cat’s apparently first-ever netbook is (as you can see in the photo) quite a looker, and it’s packing a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 CPU with 1GB DDR2 SDRAM, a 945 GSE Express chipset and a 120GB hard drive. The 10.1-inch netbook’s also got two USB ports, a 1.3 megapixel webcam and WiFi. It’s going to cost you 890 smackers to make this yours, but the sassiness alone kind of makes it worth it, doesn’t it?

[Via CNET]

Filed under: Laptops

Hello Kitty C1 netbook packs a lotta ‘tude into a small package originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 22 Nov 2008 08:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HP’s Shanghai-packing xw9400 workstation available now

KyraM — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 03:05:12 +0000

We caught a glimpse of the HP xw9400 quite a while back when it was first announced, but it’s now available on HP’s site and we’ve got the full details on the mammoth’s innards. There are quite a few customizable options, including AMD’s Dual-Core Shanghai Opteron CPUs (from 2.0GHz to 2.5GHz), up to 32GB MHz DDR SDRAM, NIVIDIA nForce Professional 3600 or 3050 chipsets, and available NVIDIA Quadro FX cards with up to 1GB of memory. There are also five internal and two external drive bays and eight USB 2.0 ports. The behemoth starts at ,399 and runs as high as ,299. Hit the read link for the widest array of specifications you can possibly ever imagine.

[Via Information Week]

Filed under: Desktops

HP’s Shanghai-packing xw9400 workstation available now originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 22 Nov 2008 06:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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